KBR, a global engineering contractor based at Houston, Texas, USA and specialized in hydrocarbons, has paid $24.5 million to acquire three subsidiaries of Sweden’s Chematur Technologies – Weatherly, Plinke and Chematur Ecoplanning.

Weatherly, headquartered at Atlanta, Georgia, USA, provides proprietary nitric acid and ammonium nitrate technologies and services to the global fertilizer market. It has an installed base of 80 nitric acid plants worldwide with around a 30% market share of installed plants.

Bad Homburg, Germany-based Plinke, specializes in proprietary technology and equipment for the purification and concentration of inorganic acids used or produced in hydrocarbon processing facilities.

The third company, Chematur Ecoplanning, of Pori, Finland, offers proprietary evaporation and crystallization technologies and specialist equipment for weak acid and base solutions.

“Through these acquisition, KBR can more fully serve our clients’ fertilizer complex solution requirements, as well as expanding our consulting and technical services to improve plant performance throughout the plant’s lifecycle, said CEO Stuart Bradie.

Bradie said KBR’s ammonia and Weatherly’s fertilizer capabilities result in a powerful combination of industry-leading technologies, and Plinke and Ecoplanning enhance the scope of its technology solutions across expanded platforms. He added that the company sees great opportunities to extend the technologies outside North America to new customers and in revamping units for existing clients worldwide.